This Much Dorkiness in a Room Ought to be Illegal
by Verity58
Summary: Just because Wirt's officially agreed to be Dipper's tutor, it doesn't mean that Wirt has to LIKE it yet. Despite the fact that Dipper is still an enormous pain in Wirt's backside, though, the kid might just be starting to grow on him a little bit. Not that Wirt is about to admit it aloud. Third in my OTGW X GF crossover series based on imaginashon's AU. Each chapter is a oneshot.
1. How'd You Even Mess Up This Bad, I Swear

Dipper's problem, Wirt reflected, was not that the kid lacked _power_ in his magic. Neither did he lack the flexibility of mind necessary to weave complicated charms. Nor was he struggling with pronunciation or diction in his spells, and although his wand movements could use some work, they weren't far enough behind average that he should be having as many problems as he was. If any of those things had been the main source of Dipper's problems, then Wirt would have at least had some inkling of where to start in tutoring him.

Unfortunately, the problem was _not_ one of those things. Instead, the main issue was apparently that the kid was _constantly doing the first thing that popped into his little scheming head regardless of instructions, advice, or common freaking sense._

"Dipper," Wirt growled as he looked over the living, breathing, highly disgruntled _llama_ that had was staring at him from the middle of the otherwise nondescript classroom. It had, presumably, been an old bookcase before Dipper's miscast spell had hit it a minute ago. "What did you _do_?"

"I was just practicing before you got here!" Dipper said, his hands balled into fists. His face was as red as the strawberry Every Flavor Beans that Greg always saved for last.

Burying his face in his hands, Wirt willed himself to take a relaxing breath. "… _Practicing_."

Dipper shifted his weight a little, and although he stubbornly refused to break eye contact, he ducked his head at a sheepish angle.

A little absently, Wirt found himself wishing that Beatrice was there. She wouldn't have been able to say anything aloud in front of Dipper, of course, but he'd at least have had someone else to exchange exasperated looks with. As much as he missed her, though, he couldn't exactly blame her for skipping out. After an incident last week where she'd been temporarily turned a violent shade of orange, she'd flatly refused to come to any more of Dipper's lessons.

"You wouldn't happen to remember _the one simple thing_ I'd asked you to do the _last_ time we met, would you?"

Reluctantly, Dipper muttered, "…to wait until you got here before trying a new spell."

"So _what…_ " Wirt stammered, gesturing wildly at the llama in disbelief. "Just… _Why!?"_

"You don't _know_ it was a new spell!" the boy said defensively, taking a step forward. "Maybe I'm just _that bad_ at the stuff we learned last year, huh? Or maybe we just started learning about how to turn things into llamas for transfiguration today. Nobody _said_ I hadn't followed your stupid instructions."

Wirt dropped his knapsack to the ground at his side with a _thump_ as he stepped fully through the doorway and into the actual classroom. "First of all, there's no possible way that you were learning about turning things into _llamas_ as a second year. Second of all, _fine_ , sure, I guess I don't know for a _fact_ that you were testing out a new spell. So then, let me just _ask. Were_ you?"

There was a brief pause.

"…Maybe?" said Dipper, shrinking into himself.

"What spell were you even _practicing_?" Wirt asked, looking again at the llama, which had started to lip at one of Dipper's textbooks, which must have fallen to the floor at some point in the confusion.

"Uh… that… light one," Dipper said, scrunching up his face as he tried to remember the exact incantation. " _Lumos_ , right?"

" _Lumos_ ," Wirt repeated, dumbly.

"The book was talking about this technique where you—" abruptly, Dipper cut off as he noticed what the llama was up to and rushed forward to grab his book back before it could be devoured.

" _Accio_ ," Wirt said with a sigh, and the textbook came flying up to him. The llama let out a bleat of protest.

"Um… thanks."

"You were saying?"

"Right. So I was reading through our Standard Book of Spells," Dipper said, gesturing vaguely to the book Wirt held in his hands, "and it talks at the beginning about how we'll be learning this technique this year where you build up energy at the tip your wand before you release it, right? But even though it's been more than three months, we still haven't even _mentioned_ it in class! So I started looking ahead…"

Of course he had.

"…and about three-fourths of the way through, it finally started outlining how you're supposed to do it, and it used _lumos_ as an example to walk people through their first try."

Wirt remembered that part. Wirt remembered that part very well—he'd been so intimidated by the warnings in that section that he'd put off learning it until Beatrice had finally gotten fed up with his complaining and goaded him into trying.

Wirt's eye twitched at the recollection. Again. It had been doing that a lot, recently. For a fleeting moment, Wirt contemplated taking Dipper's textbook, tearing out the pages on the spells that the kid had already _learned,_ and giving those pages back to him while locking the rest in a chest in Wirt's dormitory somewhere.

Resisting the urge to destroy Dipper's property, Wirt instead cracked the textbook open and started to thumb through it. "It was somewhere near chapter twelve, right?"

Dipper nodded, and then blinked in surprise when Wirt thrust the book back into his arms, opened to the appropriate page. "Um…"

"Read the first three lines of the third paragraph," Wirt said, voice weary. "Out loud, please."

Dipper cleared his throat, located the spot on the page, grimaced, cleared his throat again and then read, _"This technique, when mastered, enables the casting of far more powerful spells, but the reader is warned that this is not without risk and therefore requires the utmost concentration. Students are encouraged to experiment with this technique while being wary that lapses in concentration can result in painful side effects. It is best to first observe the technique, and then to begin mastering it under the careful guidance of one's instructor or another accomplished spellcaster."_ The rest of the page was filled with warnings of a similar caliber.

Raising one eyebrow, Wirt gestured grandly to the book.

" _Okay_ , I get your point," Dipper huffed, slamming the book shut. "I'll give it a rest for now, alright? Can we please just forget about it and start the actual lesson?"

Before Wirt could answer, an odd, trilling bleat filled the air, and both boys looked back toward the center of the classroom, where the llama was trotting back and forth. As they watched, it knocked over a chair that had been standing in its way.

"How about we get someone to help us fix the llama problem, first?" Wirt replied. Transforming an object that _big_ into something that _complicated_ was, frankly, out of Wirt's ability range. They'd have to get a teacher to come and fix it. …Or, you know. Find a place for the new llama somewhere at the school.

"…Right."

Wirt wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not that most of the teachers seemed to be used to Dipper's little mishaps by now. As soon as they managed to find someone (Professor Langtree, the divination professor, who was on her way back up from the staffroom), she took one look at Dipper's sheepish expression, gave a drawn-out sigh, and simply asked what needed fixed and where. A few minutes later, the llama was gone, the classroom had been tidied up, Langtree had finally finished rambling about her lost love, and gone back up to her office, and the boys were free to start practicing some of the more basic spells that Dipper had actually _learned_ about over the last few days.

Things didn't go _badly_ for the rest of their lesson, per se, but Wirt could tell that Dipper was frustrated with his own lack of progress all the same. At least nothing else was spontaneously turned into a llama.

Later that evening, after they'd each bid the other a tired goodbye and gone their separate ways, Wirt found himself rubbing at the back of his neck to fend off a growing headache. It wasn't exactly like he could go lie down and take a break, though. There was a prefects' meeting that night about supervising the Christmas decorations, and thanks to the madness that was Dipper's tutoring sessions, he was running late again. 

_I didn't just bite of more than I could chew with him,_ Wirt thought as he dragged himself up yet another staircase. _I'm pretty sure I tried to swallow the entire kitchen._


	2. Blackmail Material

A/N: Whoof, sorry it's been a bit! I had another chapter almost ready, but then I realized that chronologically, I wanted it to fall AFTER this one, but I hadn't even started on this one yet. So... yeah. Here ya go!

Also, this chapter was based (loosely) on an idea that zahzahchan had for this AU a while ago. You can find it at cartoonnachos . tumblr post/127899143397/zahzahchan-so-im-a-big-fan-of-imaginashons if you're interested. Without the spaces, of course. :)

* * *

Dipper hadn't exactly expected immediate results when Wirt had agreed to be his tutor. Even so, the first few weeks of lessons were frustrating. While Dipper's essays had immediately showed a marked improvement due to Wirt's suggestions and editing (the guy was really good at writing, apparently, and he was kinda almost obsessive about getting every detail of information right), Dipper's spellcasting remained as frustrating as ever.

"You can't rush it," Wirt insisted, repeatedly. "A lot of spells are affected by the concentration and emotional state of the spellcaster. If you're thinking about anything other than what's right in front of you, then it isn't going to work."

"I am focusing," Dipper always insisted. "The stupid magic just doesn't do what I want it to do!" Then, gritting his teeth, he would do his best to force the images of Nathan, Michelle, and half the rest of Slytherin House mocking him from his mind, usually with mixed results.

Maybe he wasn't quite as focused as he tried to make himself believe.

After their fourth or fifth lesson together, things started to improve by the smallest bit. It wasn't so much that Dipper's magic was getting better—in fact, he felt pretty sure that there hadn't been much difference, just yet. There was a definite change in the atmosphere, though, and things didn't seem quite as tense as they had been at first.

It took Dipper a bit to figure out that the main difference was because Wirt was a little more relaxed, now.

The realization came with an odd mixture of emotions. On one hand, it was satisfying to see that Wirt apparently didn't totally hate him (which, given the expression on the guy's face when Dipper had accidentally turned Beatrice orange, came as a huge relief). On the other hand, Dipper couldn't help but feel disappointed that the change in atmosphere wasn't due to anything that Dipper himself had done. Still, it didn't take long for the disappointment to ebb away. Instead, he just decided to enjoy the fact that while Wirt still seemed a little overly formal and overly frustrated by turns, he'd also been less tense, which made it easier to feel at ease in lessons.

"Wait," Wirt corrected one day, stopping Dipper before he could add the pieces of pickled crocodile heart that he'd been about to drop into his cauldron. "You need to use your left hand for that."

Dipper blinked, eying the chopped-up bits of meat that oozed slightly in his palm. "…Does it matter?"

"Believe me, it matters," Wirt said, a little grimly. "It won't explode or turn to poison or anything, but the whole thing will spoil, and you'll have to start from scratch again. Just… go ahead and put them in. You can't wait too long between the last step and this one."

Switching hands, Dipper did as he was told. Potions was another area that, fortunately, Dipper could already see an improvement in. It was Wirt's area of expertise, after all, and it showed through in how detailed his directions were. Dipper's main challenge for now was just remembering all the little techniques Wirt showed him.

When he was done adding the heart pieces, Dipper wiped his slimy hands off on the front of his robes. He probably should have gone and rinsed his hands in the basin in the corner of the classroom, but since he was going to wash his hands when he was done anyway, he really didn't see the point. Wirt grimaced as he watched, but he didn't say anything about cross-contaminating their other ingredients, so Dipper figured he didn't need to worry about it affecting the potion.

"It's the dandelion leaves next, right?" Dipper asked, eyeing the bubbling, pale-blue mixture in the pot.

"I don't know. What does the recipe say?" Wirt said, raising an eyebrow.

Rolling his eyes a little, Dipper leaned over and looked at his propped-open textbook. Then, he grabbed the dandelion leaves and tossed them in. "Yeah, I was right. And don't pretend like you didn't already know that. I've seen you rattle off most of these second-year potions from memory before."

"You really can't be too careful with potions," Wirt said, and unless Dipper was seeing things, there was a tiny, playful smile on his mentor's face. "Memorizing things is alright, but at the beginning stages especially, it's really best if you double-check just about everything as you go. You remember my advice for how to read a recipe?"

Dipper nodded. "Read it through once to get a feel for it, and keep a special eye out for anything you need to do quickly or prepare in advance. Then do whatever prep you need, skim the recipe again to make sure you didn't miss anything, and then check each step again as you go along."

A year ago, Dipper would have said that Wirt's methods were a little paranoid. And really, maybe they were a little paranoid. But ever since he'd seen one classmate melt every strand of hair off her head when her hair-raising potion had violently boiled over, Dipper had decided that maybe a little extra caution was okay. (Much to Dipper's disappointment, none of the potion had gotten on Pacifica, who'd been sitting one spot down, but hey, there was always hope for next time).

"That's perfect," Wirt said, and he really did sound pleased that Dipper had gotten it right. "You know, it might sound weird… I mean, well, it probably does, but this is actually part of why I like Potions so much. Unlike with spells, there's a set formula you can use and adhere to—everything's predictable. Every consequence can be traced back to an action that caused it. There's a certain method to spellcasting that's satisfying in its own right, sure, but a potion's not going to blow up if you think at it too hard."

"Nope," Dipper agreed wryly. "…Just if you do literally anything else wrong." His comment earned a small chuckle from Wirt, which in turn made Dipper laugh. It came out a little awkward, like he was trying too hard (ugh, why did he always have to make a total fool of himself around this guy), but Wirt either didn't notice or at least was nice enough to pretend he didn't.

The next step in the potion required that they let the ingredients stew a while before touching it again, so Dipper drummed his fingers restlessly on the table, looking around at the dimly-lit Potions Classroom where they were practicing. It had been a long lesson—there weren't exactly any good shortcuts or stopping places when it came to brewing potions. …Not with Dipper's limited level of experience, anyway. He kind of tried to make conversation a couple of times, but they were both pretty tired at this point, and they eventually lapsed into silence.

After about ten minutes of waiting, Wirt suppressed a yawn and then leaned forward to hunch over the wooden table, resting his weight on his arms as he gazed off at the other side of the room. He was muttering to himself a little bit, Dipper realized with a sudden, nervous jolt. It was so quiet that Dipper could barely make out the words over the bubbling in his cauldron, but Wirt was definitely whispering something that he couldn't quite make out. Feeling uneasy, Dipper squirmed. Wirt wasn't, like, complaining under his breath, was he? Sure, Dipper knew that it had been an unusually long lesson, but he'd actually been doing pretty well today, and besides, Wirt liked Potions.

Biting his bottom lip a little, Dipper tried harder to understand what was being said. After a moment, he made out what he was pretty sure was something like "…of a bird... from perch to perch…"

"Hey, uh," Dipper said, startling Wirt enough that the older boy jumped a little. "Is everything okay, man?"

For some strange reason, Wirt's face started to flush. "Um! I-I… Y-yeah, of course! Why do you ask?"

"Alright," Dipper said, furrowing his brow. "It's just… you were talking, and… Was that something about a bird? You're not still mad at me for turning Beatrice orange, are you? I swear my aim is normally better than that. If you wanted her to come to lessons again, I'm sure it would be fine." Probably.

"Hey, w-would you look at that," Wirt said, bending hastily over Dipper's cauldron. "It's ready for the next ingredient! Um… that should be the beetle eyes, if I'm remembering right, or wait, no, check the recipe first. We just talked about that. Yeah. Recipe. So, uh… p-probably better do that, huh?"

"I… yeah, sure," Dipper said with no small amount of confusion, and then briefly confirmed that the beetle eyes were indeed the next ingredient before reaching out and scooping up the small pile of them that he'd already set aside.

Wirt hovered anxiously as Dipper worked, waiting until Dipper had gathered the eyes and was just about to add them before saying, "...Except maybe wait about thirty seconds first."

Dipper barely managed to keep any of the eyes from falling into the cauldron as he stopped mid-motion. "So the potion wasn't ready," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Wirt in irritation.

"It's pretty close," Wirt muttered, glancing away. Wow. The guy's face was, like, bright red, for some reason. It was so unlike anything that Dipper had seen from Wirt so far that he really wasn't sure what to do with it.

After a minute, when Wirt gave the signal and Dipper finally added the beetle eyes, the thought crossed Dipper's mind that whatever it was, maybe it had to do with the mysterious secret that Wirt seemed to be keeping about Beatrice. ...Because there was definitely some kind of secret there. Frankly, Dipper had a lot of questions about that bluebird, starting and ending with why Headmistress McGonagall didn't seem to think anything of the less-than-birdlike mannerisms that Dipper had observed. Even before Dipper's first week as Wirt's official pupil had ended, Dipper had become half-convinced that she was an Animagus, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why she would stay transformed twenty-four seven, why she felt the need to keep it a secret, or how McGonagall wouldn't have noticed, if that was really the case. It was taking every ounce of self-control he had to not ask Wirt about it up front, but if they were working this hard to keep it a secret, then Dipper figured that he probably shouldn't press his luck.

For the rest of their lesson, he did his best to forget about Wirt's odd musings. Thanks to his mentor's careful instructions, the potion turned out almost perfectly, prompting an exhausted cheer from Dipper and an equally-exhausted smile from Wirt. Then, however, as they were packing up, Wirt's focus drifted, and started muttering again. This time, Dipper was near enough to make out the words.

"…her smile like honey, rich and sweet, rises often to her face—mingling perfectly with chocolate-colored cheeks and cinnamon lips to create an elixir that fills my starving heart. Oh, may I see that smile again. May that sweetness fill my breast until my heart hungers no more. …Ugh, no, that was terrible. May that sweetness fill my heart until… hm…"

That… didn't sound like it had anything to do with bluebirds.

"Cinnamon lips?" Dipper repeated, pausing in the middle of corking up his vials of liquid ingredients.

Wirt, who was in the process of vanishing the completed potion, froze and nearly dropped his wand.

"You okay, man?" Dipper said, feeling thoroughly confused at this point.

Meanwhile, Wirt's face had gone red again. "Oh, no…" he said. "No, no, nonono..."

"That… was that poetry, or something?" Dipper asked. "Were you, like, making that up just now?"

Without warning, Wirt lunged for Dipper and grabbed him by the shoulders, prompting a high-pitched "eep" from Dipper, who grabbed at the table to avoid being knocked clean off of his stool.

"You can't tell anyone!" Wirt said, clearly panicking.

"Tell anyone what?" Dipper demanded, leaning as far away as Wirt's grip on his robes would allow. Good grief, what had gotten into this guy? "That you whisper poetry to yourself when you're distracted?"

"Yes," Wirt insisted, his eyes wide. "Do you realize what would happen if I told everyone that I'm constantly making up poetry in my head? I'd be a laughing stock, Dipper, that's what would happen! Nobody just whispers random poetry to themselves at every hour of the day and night!"

Dipper was trying, and failing, to figure out a suitable response to that (because honestly, who cared that Wirt liked poetry?) when the heavy oaken door to the classroom slid open and Mabel barged through, her mouth spreading into a grin when she spotted them.

Hastily, Wirt let go of Dipper and buried his head in his hands instead. Letting out a rattled breath, Dipper recentered himself on his stool as he turned to face the doorway.

"Finally, you two are done," Mabel said, apparently not noticing the awkwardness in the air. "Dipper, I've got a message for you!" Then, mentally, she added, [I didn't want to interrupt you guys if you needed to concentrate, so that's why I didn't just brain-message you. You probably would've blown up a cauldron or turned Wirt into a frog or something. You're welcome!]

[First of all, you are interrupting,] Dipper shot back, glaring. [Second of all, I'll have you know that I've been doing just fine in Potions, especially since Wirt started to help! So there!] Aloud, he just huffed and asked, "What message?"

"Soos just found me and said that he could hear you singing BABBA to yourself from halfway down the main hall in the dungeons this morning," Mabel said, bouncing up and down on her toes. "Apparently the door to the showers doesn't block out sounds very well. He was running to take care of some emergency with a sink that'd somehow ended up in the Trophy Room, so he wasn't able to talk to you himself, but he said that there were other students nearby who were trying to study, and he said they all looked pretty grouchy. So if you don't wanna have people really ticked off at you or lose points for disturbing studies or something like that, try to keep it down, 'kay?"

Dipper's mouth dropped open in horror.

"…Anyway," Mabel continued, cheerfully ignoring the devastation she was leaving in her wake, "I'm meeting up with Candy and Grenda soon, so I gotta go, but good luck with your nerd stuff! Bye!"

There was a beat of terrible, horrible silence as Mabel dashed out of the classroom. Wirt's face wasn't buried in his hands anymore. His shoulders were still hunched up higher than normal, but when he turned to Dipper with a perplexed look, his cheeks weren't nearly as red as they had been. Dipper's face, on the other hand, had gone a bright enough crimson to give Wirt's a serious run for its money.

"BABBA? Wirt asked. "As in the Icelandic pop sensation?"

Dipper tried to speak, choked a little, and then tried again. "Tell you what," he finally managed, and to his shame, his voice squeaked no less than three times in the same short sentence. "If you don't tell anyone about my humiliating secret, I won't tell anyone about yours."

Wirt hesitated, but after a moment, his shoulders straightened and he turned to face Dipper more fully, his face dropping into a serious expression. For several seconds, the two of them sat with gazes locked, and in that moment, Dipper felt a sort of solemn understanding pass between them.

"Agreed," Wirt said, giving Dipper a firm nod. His voice held both a strange sense of sympathy and a good deal of relief.

At this, Dipper allowed himself a small, genuine smile as he let out his own relieved sigh. "Right," he said, returning the nod. "So… Did you want to try for five again for Monday's lesson, or…"

"I've actually got a meeting scheduled with Professor Orrick this Monday," Wirt said, turning back to finish emptying the cauldron. "We could do it right after dinner, maybe? Sorry it's been so inconsistent. My schedule's been kind of full."

"Eh, don't worry about it," Dipper answered as he started to gather up his now-corked ingredient bottles. "My afternoons are pretty much wide open, so yeah. After dinner it is."

There was a brief, awkward silence as the two of them continued packing up. Dipper's flush still hadn't entirely faded from his cheeks.

"Has, uh... has twice a week been working out for you, by the way?" Wirt asked after a minute.

"Yep," Dipper said. "No problems here."

"Alright. Good." Wirt paused before checking his watch and then looking over his shoulder at the door. "I've actually got Quidditch practice coming up pretty soon, so I should probably start getting ready for that. I'll put the ingredients from the student supply cupboard back on the way out. Do you have everything else covered?"

"Oh! Um... Yeah, I should be good here. Have fun at practice."

Wirt smiled. "Thanks."

In another quick minute or two, Wirt had finished gathering up the stock ingredients and left. The instant his mentor was out the door, Dipper let out a loud, exasperated moan and banged his head roughly against the table.

He was going to kill Mabel.

…Still, despite the fact that he was mentally cursing his sister six ways from Sunday, he had a distinct feeling that on the other side of the door, Wirt was probably sagging against the wall, letting out his own drawn-out groan of embarrassment and relief. Pretty soon, Dipper was laughing to himself like an idiot, leaning hard on the table with the small handful of his remaining unpacked potions ingredients scattered around him.

He wasn't entirely positive that he understood what had just happened. But somehow, despite the awkwardness of it all, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that it wasn't a bad thing.

* * *

A/N: What does the potion do? It provides an opportunity for exposition and relationship-building level banter, that's what it does. (idk, use your imaginations)

Additional fun fact: alternate possible titles for this chapter included "Bonding Is Mutual Embarrassment, Obviously" and "In Which Explosions Are Mentioned, Like, 1000 Times, but the Only Thing That Really Gets Damaged Is Dipper's Pride."


End file.
